IETP Joins the Experts to Explore the Implementation of Family-Friendly Workplaces

In 1994, in order to raise the international community's awareness of the importance of family and building closer and harmonious relationships between family members, the United Nations proclaimed the 15th May as the "International Day of Families”. This year, the promotional campaign for this day in China was organized by the National Health Commission of the PRC, held by the China Population Welfare Foundation and UNICEF China. With the theme “Creating Family-Friendly Environments to Give Every Child the Best Start in Life”, the event was successfully held in Shenzhen on the 15th May. As a program that is dedicated to the responsible production of toys and promoting its mutually-beneficial outcomes for both business and society, IETP was honored to be invited to participate in the event’s roundtable discussion with experts from different sectors, including the China Population and Development Research Center, UN Women China, China Corporate University and Capital University of Economics and Business, to share their views and insights regarding family-friendly workplaces. IETP’s representative introduced the Family-Friendly Spaces (FFS) program, a program that has been rolled out by IETP and benefits working parents and their children. IETP illustrated in detail the positive impacts of the Family-Friendly Spaces (FFS) program for both businesses and workers: FFS effectively increases workers' sense of belonging to the factories. As a result, both the worker retention rate and the levels of trust in management improve, these changes will eventually bring further business benefits to the factories.IETP’s representative (first from the right) and the panelists share their insights on implementing family-friendly workplacesFamily-Friendly Spaces (FFS) is one of the initiatives which makes up the overarching Family-Friendly Factories (FFF) program. This program is designed to effectively assist factories in providing the most appropriate support to parent workers facing different issues. The program enables factories to offer assistance and care to workers so as to establish a pleasant and friendly working environment.The Family-Friendly Factories (FFF) program provides a wide variety of services for parent workers. The After School Centers (ASC) initiative creates child-care spaces which remain open following the summer holidays, providing comprehensive after-school care. The Migrant Parent Training (MPT) initiative educates migrant workers on how to support their left-behind children at distance. These initiatives not only benefit workers and their children, but also have been proven to bring positive business benefits to the factory. Results taken from the impact reports of each initiative state that 97% of factory management agreed that FFS helped to improve the satisfaction levels of workers with the factory and worker retention levels. Of the workers who participated in MPT, 85% said they trusted the management team and believed they care. For many factories, the program establishes a more harmonious working atmosphere and a stable workforce. A more stable workforce can effectively improve productivity, product quality and reputation of the factories, so as to achieve a mutually beneficial outcome for the children, workers and factory management.IETP created an impact report on the progress and data of the FFF program since 2016. Please click here to download the report to learn more about the achievements of each program since their launch. You can also have a look at the positive changes and feedback from factories and workers after their participation in the program. Feel free to contact us at join@ethicaltoyprogram.org if you want to know how the program can incorporate into your CSR strategy.